In Washington An End To Hesitation

From the moment the chaplain, James Shera Montgomery, offered the opening prayer, it was obvious this would be no routine session of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"In this day which no epitaph can flatter and no monument call back to life," Montgomery said solemnly, "there are iron-toned discords roaring with the flames of pain and death. Comfort all who mourn their innocent dead and wounded ones. Speak to us; give us courage in the darkness ... ."

Little more than 23 hours earlier, on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Now at noon Monday, members of the House and Senate, many having rushed back to Washington from their home states, were gathering to hear from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The congressional leadership had met with Roosevelt at the White House late the previous evening, but he kept his plans to himself. Leaving the meeting, at which the leadership sat in dead silence, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, was asked if he thought Roosevelt would seek a declaration of war.

"He didn't say," Rayburn responded as he pushed into the chilly darkness.

On Monday, there was a brief recess in the House after the prayer. Outside, the Capitol was ringed with armed troops and policemen. Inside, tension gripped members as they waited and exchanged bits of information.

Lucien J. Maciora, a first-term Democratic congressman from New Britain, Conn., was among those who awaited the president. Maciora was home in Connecticut when he heard the news of the Japanese attack. In an interview recently, he recalled receiving a call from a secretary in Washington.

"We were advised it would be a good idea to come immediately," Maciora said. "I made it my business to go right to Washington."

Maciora arrived in Washington late Sunday evening by plane. By early Monday afternoon, he and most other members -- a few did not make it back in time -- had been filled in on the basic facts. "Everyone was anxious to get going and get started," said Maciora, who is now 89.

The recess lasted only until 12:15 p.m., when the House

doorkeeper, Joseph J. Sinnott, began announcing Vice President Henry A. Wallace, members of the Senate and, finally, the president's Cabinet.

At 12:29 p.m., Roosevelt entered the huge House chamber to an enormous wave of cheers, mounted the rostrum on the arm of his son, James, and began to deliver one of the most famous speeches in American history:

"Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of Japan."

Roosevelt's speech, broadcast to the nation on radio, was short and to the point. Some of his advisers wanted the president to give a detailed account of U.S. negotiations with the Japanese and events leading to the attack. But Roosevelt overruled them, sticking with a recitation of the facts of the attack.

In a gesture to history, Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, sat in the gallery with Edith Wilson, whose husband, Woodrow, a generation earlier had been the last American president to lead the country in war. Within 10 minutes, the president concluded, saying:

"I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire."

The joint session of Congress promptly dissolved, and the Senate and House separately began considering the president's request.

The smaller Senate moved more quickly. Security was tight and the visitors' galleries were jammed, recalled Joseph E. Wills, an assistant superintendent in the press gallery. "It was excitement everywhere," Wills said in an interview from his home in Virginia. "That's all we talked about that day."

Sen. Tom Connally, D-Texas, chairman of the foreign relations committee, wanted to vote without debate. But Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg, R-Mich., insisted on being recognized. Vandenberg, a leading isolationist, had called the White House the previous afternoon "to tell the president that, despite all differences on other things, I would support him without reservation in his answer to Japan," as he later wrote in his diary.

On Monday afternoon he publicly urged his followers to do the same. "I have fought every trend which I thought would lead to needless war," Vandenberg said, "but when war comes to us -- and particularly when it comes like a thug in the night -- I stand with my commander in chief."

With no more debate, the chief clerk called the roll. The result: 82-0.

In the House, isolationist opposition to U.S. involvement in the fighting already raging in Europe and Asia melted just as quickly.

Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr., R-N.Y., who Roosevelt had excluded from the Sunday night meeting because of his passionate isolationist sentiment, rose and joined in denouncing the Japanese.